June 7th, 1995. 1:15 AM You arrive home after a year abroad. You expect your family to greet you, but the house is empty. Something's not right. Where is everyone? And what's happened here? Unravel the mystery for yourself in Gone Home, a story exploration game from The Fullbright Company.

Commentary Mode now available!

Your copy of Gone Home now includes Developer Commentary Mode! More than an hour and a half of audio commentary from the developers of the game. Find it in the Modifiers menu when starting a new game! Enjoy!!

About This Game

June 7th, 1995. 1:15 AM

You arrive home after a year abroad. You expect your family to greet you, but the house is empty. Something's not right. Where is everyone? And what's happened here? Unravel the mystery for yourself in Gone Home, a story exploration game from The Fullbright Company.

Gone Home is an interactive exploration simulator. Interrogate every detail of a seemingly normal house to discover the story of the people who live there. Open any drawer and door. Pick up objects and examine them to discover clues. Uncover the events of one family's lives by investigating what they've left behind.

Go Home Again.

Key Features

A Personal Story: created by veterans of the BioShock series and the writer behind Minerva's Den, Gone Home offers the rich, nuanced details of one family's struggles to deal with uncertainty, heartache, and change.

An Immersive Place: return to the 1990s by visiting a home where every detail has been carefully recreated, and the sounds of a rainstorm outside wrap you in the experience.

No Combat, No Puzzles: Gone Home is a nonviolent and puzzle-free experience, inviting you to play at your own pace without getting attacked, stuck, or frustrated. This house wants you to explore it.

Fully Interactive Investigation: discover what's happened to the Greenbriars by examining a house full of the family's personal possessions, and the notes and letters they've left behind. Use your powers of observation to piece together a story that unfolds as you explore.

First of all, for those who are arguing this is supposed to be a horror game, it's not. The basic storyline is 'you come home and nobody is there, find out why' and not 'zombies have taken over the house and lurk in the basement'.

Yes, "Gone Home" is short, once you know where to find the information and the keys, you can play it in a little over 10 minutes ... but that means only going through the house and triggering the ending sequence, that kind of playing will not give you the complete story. The story, however, is not just about Sam (the sister). You can also find out about your father's troubles with writing, about his weird uncle, who owned the house before the family moved in, and other stuff. Basically, the game lets you catch up with the family history during the time you were in Europe.

It's an everyday story, not something great or heroic or scary. It's just the unease everyone would feel alone in a house they've never been in before, at after 1 a.m. on a night with a thunderstorm, not atmospheric horror like in "Amnesia."

$20 might indeed be a little much for the game... and 'game' a little too much of a word for "Gone Home" but it does not deserve all the bad reviews it has gotten. If you want an action game, this is not for you... but that should be obvious from the description. If you like uncovering a story for yourself, you might want to give it a chance.

Great concept, but horrible execution. As a gamer who prefers great story, atmosphere, and/or characters to gunplay, Gone Home caught my attention for precisely that: making gameplay as bare-bones as possible to make you focus on what was happening in the story instead of what was attacking you. The downside to this approach is the story must step up to the plate and be great to compensate for the lack of combat. And that is where Gone Home falls flat on its face.

It initially sets itself up as a kind of murder mystery, since you come to your house, alone, with no one there at all during a storm. The reason no one is there is just poor timing on the player character's part, so that mystery is a bit of a let down. Beneath that, there's uncovering the family dynamic and secrets that have been accumulating since you left. And, quite frankly, that's almost as boring as why everyone was gone. Finding the clues is exciting at first, but that's nothing but a sense of achievement speaking. The clues themselves paint a picture based on stereotypes we've all heard a dozen times before in books, TV, movies, and every other medium out there. One voice throughout tries to make it better by adding emotion to it all, but trying and doing can be two very different things.

Overall, very disappointed and very confused as to why this did so well critically.

Introduction==========Gone Home is an excellent example of how amazing an exploratory story game can be. The story is told as you explore each room, and bits and pieces of the story are shown to you for you to put them together. When everything is said and done, you have a great overall picture of what's happened/happening in the game. Gone HOme does a very good job laying everything out before you.

Gameplay==========Played entirely in first person, Gone Home drops you off at the front door of your home after a trip abroad. A note on the door clues you in that your sister is gone and asks you not to try and find out where she went. As you go along, you find out what happened through little notes and pictures that you find hidden around the house. At certain points you need to find a key to open up a new section of the house, opening up new bits of story, clues, and notes to find to help you piece together the overall story. Not going to spoil anything, but the story is well written and you can totally see it as an event that could really happen.

There are sections where you might expect something to happen, or some baddie to jump out and get you (due to the ambience), but nothing of the sort is present in this game. So if you are expecting that, you will be disappointed. Gone Home is purely a story game.

Graphics==========The house you explore is very realistic. The layout is a bit weird and unconventional at places, but overall it works. Furniture and other props such as cups and cabinets all look great. Doors, windows, etc all have the same detail. Lightning is questionable, where everything is almost completely dark until you turn on a light. Even then, some areas aren't very realistic when lit. It works though, I suppose. You will make a habit of looking fo rlight switches or lamps when you enter a new room.

If you look close enough, you will find a myriad of obscure references to the 80's and 90's, especially in a few of the bedrooms, on the cassette tapes you find near tape players, and on postes in various rooms. There are tons to find, try to find all you can!

Sound and Music==========The music is very calming, but as said above, there are points where it might make you think something will jump out at you. Gone Home is a very ambient game, with lots of backgrounds noise and weather effects to set the mood and atmosphere. It's all very fitting for the theme of the game, and well placed.

Performance==========I had absolutely no issues running this game. It ran at a constant 60FPS and had no stuttering or frame loss. It didn't crash at any point either. Most users should have no issues running this game, as it didn't seem to be very 'heavy' on my rig. No complaints here!

Final Thoughts==========A great story driven exploratory adventure, Gone Home is a nice, relaxing game that you can enjoy at your pace for a few hours. The only downside is that it is extremely short. It took me approximately 2-3 hours to complete the story. This included actually reading everything I found, taking screenshots, and picking up/looking at most of the objects scattered about. Regardless, it's worth the price of admission (on sale) because it tells a great, moving story.

Spoilers possible. With that said I thought this game would be cool. I don't remember what I payed for it, but whatever I paid it was too much. It's way too short, and I predicted the end very early on. They should have made the house haunted or have the power go off at least. What I did like was the 90's nostalgia. I grew up in that decade so it was pretty cool taking a tour, and it did bring back memories of that time period for me. It was just boring to me. Not worth a playthru at least in my opinion. They had the atmosphere going for them, and threw it away on a love story that didn't make me feel anything for the characters involved. The music was pretty good. You can pick up just about anything in the house and throw it on the ground. Turn on every light and then back off again. Find secret passages and walk around. When it ended I was very disappointed, and felt very ripped off. 5/10